How do you raise a boy in Australia and NOT have a heart attack over spiders, blue ringed octopus and other bitey jaggy things?

[ViolentFemme]

OK we're moving to Sydney in June when ds will just have turned one. He's very inquisitive and especially loves things that he's not allowed to have. I can just see him chasing after every spider he sees and me having a coronary trying to stop him!

So Aussie ladies how do you do it? Do you just let them get on with it? Have I blown this out of proportion in my head?

I have two boys. Am Australian.

Easy to avoid. I have never seen a blue ringed octopus and any other bitey jaggy thing.

Venomous (sp?) spiders are few and far between and everyday household spiders are not harmful. We do get our house sprayed by a pest controller every 12 months though as I don't like any spiders or ants/cockroaches at all.

I am a camper too. Camp in the bush and have still never seen anything bitey or jaggy.

Moving to Sydney which is not as tropical as Queensland (where I am) you have even less chance of seeing these things.

I was very much the same as you, ViolentFemme, but then you realise that that these animals are not waiting around the corner just to get you!

Our hardest part was to re-educate DS about spiders. He would previously let them run all over him, but since we found a white-tail quite happily running up his sleeve that had to stop. We also get plenty of redbacks in the house, but DS is now good at alarming us to that fact and does not touch them anymore.

Our biggest bug problem is ants. Not harmful but bleddy disgusting.

DCsnatchsunhill you can get pest control spray that is natural pyrethrins (sp?) and not chemically harmful.

A spray inside/outside the house will kill all spiders/cockroaches/ants etc. Costs around $150.

We get this done every 12 months and have screens on our windows. I have never seen a redback or whitetail spider.

at huntsmen and daddylonglegs though even if they are harmful.

Thanks girls. It still seems so unreal at the moment. I reckon ds will grow up more cool about the wildlife than me and dh. And I forget that Sydney is NOT the bush, LOL!

it is not just boys my dd2 is fascinated with spiders. Not seen any snakes yet ( except in a zoo/cages so that is okay BUT she loves animals so we have talked about what you can touch and what is a no touching. If she is not sure - not touching and come and ask mum and dad.

redbacks, huntsmen - no snakes. Lots of birds - we live in surburbia.

not many birey things in our house tho. second the ants and when they bite they hurt lots.. sports day last week at school and the kids had to wait in the class rooms because big bulll ants had taken over the oval. I have finally put ant rid outside the doors and windows with amazing results. Only had one poisonous spider it was a big female funnel web with egss but afraid she got the fly spray treatment and was removed with great care to be eaten outside.
we had two snakes in the yard. but we had building going on next door and the grass was so long that it was over the top of our fence and what with all the rain the bottom of our lawn was long too.. not that bad tho! when dh mowed and snipped one snake ran in front of him and another one had taken up residence in a pile of roof tiles. we had that one removed by the council becasue he turned out to be a babay brown snake. DD loves anything that moves... i often get told its nature mummy leave it alone. So normally i do!!!!!

My kids don't like any kind of creepy crawlies and keeping them away isn't usually the problem, so I was slightly taken aback when DD (5) asked me why I was spraying the "poor little (!!!!) huntsman" in the garage the other day.

In a lot of areas of Sydney your chances of seeing anything are extremely remote - I lived in Potts Point many moons ago and didn't see as much as a teeny house spider in a year, now we're on the edge of the bush you'd expect more but it really isn't a problem (and I speak as someone who would have described myself as SEVERELY arachnaphobic until recently).

The population is 20 million. Presumably about 10 million of those are males who haven't been killed by spiders.

I have been to Australia several times and been bitten by a HUGE ant and Dh had leeches, but never seen a snake except in a wildlife park.

Chloeb - eaten by what???

ha ... not sure what but i am reassured that wahtever ate would die to because of the amount of fly spray on the dead spider.. i would hazard a guess that the ants took it away. better than the thought of anything else!

I can second Eids, & say it is not only boys!

DD LOVES anything creepy crawly! She has a bug catcher & came in side with it full of flying ants the other day! She will pick up milipeeds & beetles.

She knows that she is to tell us as soon as she sees a spider of any kind & not to touch it.

Make sure you check toys before you bring them indoors, as spiders do like hitch rides into the house, well into ours, anyway!

Bikes & out door toys/furniture get sprayed very often & inspected everyday!

My mum brought us up in rural Africa - I have no idea how she managed to let us roam freely . There were heaps of snakes around. I don't know if I would be able to be so relaxed.

My brother did get bitten by a Puff Adder, but that was in the garden right in front of the house not in out in the wild

Your post made me laugh, ViolentFemme. You and DS will be fine! We have been in Sydney for 3 months now and I haven't really seen anything scary...apart from the odd disgusting cockroach but I don't think anyone has been killed by a cockroach...made violently ill by how revolting they are, yes, but killed, no
I hope your moving plans are all going well.
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